Casablanca-based ONOMO Hotels has entered the South African hotel market with the purchase of three properties: The Inn on the Square in Cape Town; the Signature Lux Hotel and brand in Sandton; and a newly built ONOMO hotel in the Durban CBD, due to open in March.

The group’s entry into South Africa forms part of its pan-African expansion plan, made possible by a €106m (R1,5bn) equity fundraiser late last year by its controlling shareholder, the Luxembourg-based Batipart SAS, an equity and venture capital firm. The latest acquisitions bring its portfolio to 10 hotels across Africa, with representation in Dakar (Senegal), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Libreville (Gabon), Bamako (Mali), Lomé (Togo), Conakry (Guinea), Kigali (Rwanda) and Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban in South Africa.

Speaking at the launch of the ONOMO Hotel Cape Town Inn on the Square, ONOMO’s regional director of South and East Africa, Samantha Annandale, said the group was only targeting Africa, where it aimed to become the leading three-star hotel chain, focusing on corporate city hotels or hotels near airports, which they all own and operate themselves.

She said ONOMO already has a strong foothold in West Africa, but had now set its sights on East and South Africa. Expansion in 2018/19 is planned in Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Benin, Gabon, Congo and Ethiopia, with further acquisitions in Casablanca, Addis Ababa and Accra envisaged by 2020. 

Annandale said the ONOMO brand stood for ecological sustainability and technological solutions, and promoted contemporary African culture and art, while supporting local resources, so that local communities benefited from the economic impact of the hotels.

She said the new Signature Lux Hotel by ONOMO in Sandton was an upmarket two-star, fully digitised establishment aimed at the millennial market, where booking, check-in, room access and in-room entertainment were app accessed.

ONOMO Hotel Cape Town Inn on the Square is located on Green Market Square, in one of the city’s oldest buildings, and has 165 bedrooms, concierge and office services, a restaurant, cocktail bar, rooftop pool, sauna and fitness facilities. 

GM Mynhardt de Jongh, said the hotel’s business mix at present was 80% STO, 15% government, with corporates and FITs making up the rest.